Because if the Tomb Kings got a 40k equivalent, why not the Vampire Counts? So, last time we discussed the origins of cyber-vampirism through a mad heretek's experiments with Necron nanotechnology, and we covered how the equivalents of the different "vampire" bloodlines could have emerged.

But what about the rest of the VC units? What about the necromancers and the skeletons and all those other ghouls and undead? What do they look like in the grim darkness of the distant future?

>>54353855"Nanomancer's" are the 40K equlivant to Necromancers, who, in essence, are Adeptus Mechanicus Members are walking Nanomachine banks who make Corpse Constructs and lesser Cyborgs and Thralls.

>>54354313>>54355750Skeletons are called "Servotons" bassically there skeletons with a thin layer of nanopast making a thin layer of synthetic skin. there more or less useless and are made to act like low level servitors.

Ghouls and Strigoi are Jokaero/monkeys the Cyber Cult find on various human worlds.

>>54348416"Cyborks" are low level Thrall who have there Fungus like biology converted to Cyberorgans. yada yada, technobabble. instead of Spores they produce more Nanomachines.

>>54355750I'm torn on that issue. I mean, skeletons were exclusively melee fighters in Fantasy, but that was because the idea was that they were ancient war dead who rose with the weapons they'd been buried with. With that in mind, I'd say it would make more sense for them to have a mix of melee weapons and lasguns/autoguns.

Like the cyber-necromancer could build little simplistic robots that would burrow down into mass graves or catacombs or whatever and latch onto a skeleton and extend its mechanical tendrils along its limbs to reanimate it like a puppet, whereupon the skeleton grabs whatever weapon is close at hand and scrambles up out of the ground.

>>54357719>Basic idea is that there Vampyrs horribly mutated by the Halo Devices.I'm cool with that. The relics from the Halo Stars are pretty cool and deserve more than a vague mention in a couple of Rogue Trader books.

>>54353855So, we know that Pariahs are born human. We know that Necrons used to be suspect of seeding humanity with the Pariah Gene. Wouldn't it make sense for certain Necron Courts to keep cattle of Human Pariah to breed and harvest "Soullessness" from? Cause vampires keeping humans as live-stock is a pretty common trope.

>>54357719Inquisitor Zon Vandersten, before he became a pawn to the Cyber Vampyre menace had a intriste in the Halo Devices. and used his position outside of "official" Imperial borders to his advantage and spent the vast majority of his freetime researching and hunting such a mythical Divine Devices, but alas, perished before he had the hopes and misfortune to find one.

His Strain and bloodline, however, continued there Fathers struggle, and on the furthest reach of space where not even Chaos could manifest in the matterium, They found one. and suffered the Fate there Father blissfully avoided

>>54357719One can imagine recently turned cyber-vampires being unsatisfied with what they've gained and traveling out to the fringes of known space pursuing rumors of yet greater power through the Halo Devices. After all, they've already gotten results from infusing themselves with Necron nanomachines, so surely using yet another ancient forbidden technology would only make things better, right? Except they find out too late that their already inhuman physiology binds to the Halo Device far more readily than a normal mortal man, accelerating the process of madness and physical transformation that usually accompanies the Halo Devices. Each use of the device's power warps their minds and bodies still further, eventually reducing them to bestial horrors.

You get that great "undone by their own hubris" sort of feel going on.

>>54359061It's still daylight in most of 4chan-land. The rest of the posters will come soon enough.

>>54360314its unkown exatly why the Giest Strain can survive in the Void of space, mabye its a ironic gif the Halo Stars blessed them with, or maybe its a some weird mutation.

however, due to there immense strength there a hight threat to Imperial ships, tearing holes in the side's as a crude form of Breaching. one it enters the ship the crew is slaughterd en mass and hunted by the Grotesque beasts.

>>54360608>Vampyrs get foot holds on enough worlds that it starts effecting the tiths.>also more and more messages get through about a new Xeno/Mutant bread spreading around the galaxy>send the the guard/space marines/inquisition to see whats happening>first contact, corpse constructs everywhere.>hordes of thralls in the lower/underhive>fuckfuckfuck>first bit of investigators ded>send a crusade to the Halo Stars to deal with the new threat.[spoilers]UV light las guns are invented[/spoilers]

>The Bloody Tears SMC Where a experimental chapter made during the Cursed Founding

>The goal of this chapter was to weaponize on the Blood Angels "black rage" Geneseed defect. but instead of becoming Senguinius they all become mini Night Haunters basically. along with a experamental Black Carapace called "Nanopace", which allowed them to hide there Power Armor with in there veins when not in use.>however, like with every chapter from the cursed founding, they where deeply flaw'd>after they left planet, the dead they would slaughter would rise back from the dead and often would plunge worlds they have once saved back into Anarchy.>After the Purging of the Firehawks the inquisition set there sights on the Bloody Tears, believing that they too where tainted by Chaos.>there Chapter Master, Val'ucaard Szepesh (cont

Brutal, but honorable warrior who was forced out of the Imperium not because of treason, but because it was discovered that his chapter were descended from the Night Lords' tainted gene seed. Living in exile with his battle brothers on the fringes of the remote Transylv'an Sector, he came to hate the dogmatic ways of the Imperium he once served, but was too proud to become a slave to the Chaos Gods as so many others had. He reformed his warband as a knightly order holding dominion over the serfs of the sector's feudal worlds, swelling the ranks of his forces with whatever wayward souls who would swear to his code.

As his warband grew in influence, it was only a matter of time before he attracted the attention of Imperial agents. Now accused as a Chaos Lord by his former masters, he faced overwhelming forces arrayed against him. The Dark Gods once more sought his loyalty with offers of great power, yet once more he refused them. It was then, in his darkest hour, that a strange envoy came before him. A pale creature of glistening synthetic flesh and almost formless grace. She claimed to speak for one on Mars, bearing a mighty gift for those who, like her nameless master, stood apart from the Imperium. What choice did he have but to accept?

He and his men were transformed, their bodies remade in a blasphemous fusion of flesh and Necron nano-technology. Beyond the grip of death, stronger and faster than any mortal man, they swept aside the Imperial expeditionary force in a single night of horror and blood. It was only then that he came to understand the price he had paid for this victory as he watched his men feast upon the dying and felt the same hunger growing insatiably within him.

>>54360571They probably aren't much of a threat to the Imperium, in that I really don't see them raising armies and invading the way Chaos does. These guys are nobles and heretical AdMech who just wanted immortality and power. As long as their personal domains are secure, they don't have much in the way of goals; there's no ideological element driving them to conquer.

The areas under their control would basically be a no-go zone, both for the Imperium and for other factions. If the Imperium was smart about it, they could probably use the vampire counts' territory as a sort of buffer against xenos and Chaos incursions.

If you don't like the idea that the Orks could be infected, please ignore.

Attempts to test the strain on an Ork Nob were either wildly successful or a disaster depending on who you ask. The already ferocious creature became more belligerent than ever, slaying other orks left and right and draining them of their bodily fluids. The vampire orc grew larger through time and battle, as is usual for its kind, but it also became more and more mutated. It now stands a bit over 8 feet tall, and is covered in grey metallic skin and spiked bony protrusions. A small warband has started to follow it, calling it warboss thirster. They make slurping sounds as their warcry, mimicking the noises their boss makes as he sucks his victims into lifeless husks.

>>54361769it also may appere that the Beasts have a thick layer of Hair covering there bodeys, but after further investigation it becomes evident that the "hair" is actually translucent wires that protrudes from the skin.

>>54361595>a group of Dark Eldar ships passing through the Transylv'an sector on a slave raid approaches too close to a world under the control of a vampire lord>a vast ruin of a ship comes drifting towards them from high orbit>the ship reads as lifeless on their sensors and they pay it no heed, mistaking it for a remnant of a space hulk>as the ship drifts into their midst, flocks of Geists take flight from its corroded spires and descend upon the Dark Eldar without warning, ripping into their fragile hulls>grappling hooks fired from the vampire's ship reel in the crippled fleet to be boarded by necro-tech constructs>the Dark Eldar stand little chance against the numberless legions of bone and metal, and are quickly overwhelmed>20,000 prisoners are expelled into the void of space through the airlocks, forming a ring of frozen Eldar bodies orbiting the vampire lord's world>henceforth, he is known as Vlad the Expeller

"Ghost Ships" are the name giving to the ships the Vampyrs make, use, and sell to Rogue Traders.

the names a misnomer however, for the Ships are actually massive Corpse Constructs filled to the brim with mutilated corpse within the walls.

the ships will also slowly infect the crew with airborn strains that slowly deteriorate the flesh of the crew when there asleep. it later adds them to the massive complex of gore that it houses within its walls.

>>54361996"However, if any of the Crew turns out to be a Blank/carries the Pariah Gene, the ships automated Nano generators will start making him a Vampyr Lord, and gives him the option to turn the rest of his crew into lesser Vampyrs to obey his biddings

>>54362043The vamps would be in a singularly good position to recover space hulks and rebuild ships from them, on account of their undead minions being mostly immune to the dangers of madness and corruption that you'd find in drifting hulk.

A lot of them would be old Imperial ships but if you take apart one of the larger truly ancient space hulks, some of the ships you'd find would inevitably be spooky pre-Imperial relics.

>>54362697>Imperium as a whole probably hate them as a whole.I like how in WHFB, the vampires are sort of a known secret that is allowed to continue because they are too valuable to the Empire (though that doesn't stop a rogue witch-hunter from wrecking their shit from time to time.) Similarly, I like the "the Imperium can't survive without its rampant hypocracy" meme in 40k.

I feel like the tithes from MOST vampire worlds would in-fact be higher than before, because of the brutal efficiency of necro-servitors being the majority of the labor. It would take some doing to keep up a conscription tithe, but a food/resource tithe would actually improve in yield.

>In no small part thanks to the backroom dealings of the Inquisitors and Rogue Traders of the Vandersten family, the Transylv'an is largely ignored by the larger armies of the imperium, and by all official records, is still part of the imperium. They are remarkably loyal planets by all counts: mere PDF's dealing with much greater threats than expected, and their agri-worlds producing vast a vast surplus of food to be shipped to other sectors. "Surely this is the work of fanatical loyalty" is the official line. The sheer number of threats stopped by the sector has dissuaded the high-lords from mounting any direct investigations. The few inquisitors who were rumored to have gone investigating of their own accord have a tendency to have their names stricken from the record, and quietly shoved to the bottom of the pile by automated machine-spirit docu-sorters. There are of-course rumors, but those in a position to mount such investigations gain far to much saftey and tithe from the region to want to rock the boat.

The only thing that matches the level effete snobbery of the Vampire Counts from Fantasy, to me, would be exiled or expunged Imperial Ecclesiasticy come back from the dead to do their own thing against Guilliman. I openly admit to not reading much into this thread so I apologize if that was already mentioned by someone else.

>>54363001The way I originally envisioned the virus, the Eldar would surely have their soul destroyed.... BUT... silver lining.... not by Slaanesh.

>Yes Farseer, I indeed have a way to permanently stave off She Who Thirsts. I know my.... nature... makes it both difficult to see my future and makes your kind uncomfortable, but if I focus on suppressing the aura, and you look into the future, you will see that what I say is true. If you work with me, never again will another soul of this craftworld be devoured by Slaanesh: that I can promise.

>>54363197>>54363293>The Imperium was fast to act when they first became aware of the Vampyre menace.

>thinking that this was another outbreak of the Bloodtide the High Lords sent the Ordo Hereticus and Malleus with both Camber Militants to resurrect and destroy this new scourge.

>the First to make planetfall where the Sisters of Battle and Storm Troopers who slain horde upon horde of Thralls and Corpse Constructs.

It was later revealed that a "Genestealer Cult" had taken hold on the planet, and needed to be exterminated. A loyal neigboring "PDF" came to the planet to exterminate the cult, and their heroic self sacrifice in the face of the enemy was truly heroic, and while they did succeed in many battles, it was ultimately determined by Inquisitor Vandersten, that the planet would be subject to exterminatus.

After the viral-bombs were dropped, there were no signs of life, and to this day, no psychic scans reveal any life on the planet.

>This is Lord Vandersten. You will cease this silly disruption of our isolation at once. A few dead Nuns is one thing, but an entire investigation that I didn't even have time to usurp? That's going too far. You will move your operrations underground, and you will cease the utilization of all living serfs at once, or this exterminatus will be real.

>>54363392Honestly, 40k Vampire Counts would be a great launch vehicle for Chaos Eldar. Chaos Eldar have been this nebulous thing that has been floating around forever in the fluff but never otherwise touched upon. You have Fallen Phoenix and that's about it. Once more, they would be a pretty good foil for Girlyman's current semi-reasonable Eldar Alliance and if they combined with the Dark Mechanicus or the like fallen ecclesiasticy such as Miriael Sabathiel, 40k Vampires would also be a nice re-launch vehicle for the SoB, giving them a legit villain to fight, something the SoB have always lacked outside the ever forgettable hordes of the usual heretics.

>>54363489I feel like the Eclisiarchy REALLY wants to mount a full investigation, but the Administratum and the Ordo [Haven't Figured Out Which Ordo Vandersten is Yet) are sufficiently corrupted (not totally corrupted, just corrupted in JUUUUST the right places) that they can't get approval. This of-course doesn't stop the occasional fanatical preacher, or puritan inquisitorial rival of Vandersten, from going rogue and mounting their own invasions.... but how well did it work out for witch hunters when they went after the Von Carsteins?

Like, yeah, the Eclisiarchy/Ministorum ABSOLUTELY hates the sector, and really resents that they are largely kept out (save for Vandersten's personal "Sisters of Battle.") There's definately a shadow-war going on there. But if you were to read the records outside of the sector, you would never know.

>>54363670We could also go Ordo Hereticus, toA: justify how he manages to keep the Ministorum from COMPLETELY exposing the sector's "secrets."andB: Allow him to have an army of converted Vampire-Nun Sisters Of Battle.

>>54364199Oh absolutely. Lord Vandersten doesn't even bother to stop it. Letting the newly minted impetuous counts run from the Imperium's more fanatical elements serves both to seperate the wheat from the chaff, and teach a valuable lesson in why remaining OFICIALLY part of the Imperium is of such import to HIS sector.

>>54362697Deldar all ready know about us, seeing as Mekash traded the faulty version with them, found out that a Sector was filled and decided "let's give Mekash a surprise party!", but they vastly underestimated just how truly dangerous they are and died. And that probably/definitely chaught the attention of several Kabals

>>54364579I had an idea about this, that also links to the other bloodlines, and how they might be represented on table... or at-least a little bit.

>Nerata and her progeny keep their connection to the adeptus mechanicus alive, and those connections run deep.>For each detatchment of Nerata or [Nerata Successor Bloodline] included in your army, you may include one Adeptus Mechanicus detachment, regardless of keywords. These detachments may not include named characters.

>The Vandersten are consumate manipulators, and it is largely their influence that keep "The Inner Vampire Systems" off the radar. When the need arises, he can even call upon the mortal PDF's of the sector, who fight as fanatically to defend their way of life as any loyalist.>For each Vandersten or [Vandersten Successor Bloodline] detachment in your army, you can include one Astra Militarum detachment in your army, regardless of keywords. These detachments may not include named characters.

>The Bloody Tears have been known to proselytize to their former bretheren, and their "initiates" are composed of converted warbands.>For each Bloody Tears or [Bloody Tears Successor Bloodline] detachment in your army, you may include one Heretic Astartes detachment. These detachments may not include named characters.

>While the Orks are not known to bend the knee to anything insufficiently orky, when a giant bloodthirsty ape, who communicates through brutal cunning rather than words, builds tech like a mekboy, and (most importantly) can shapeshift his skin to green, many a warboss has been lead to believe such creatures to be avatars of Gork or Mork.>For each Strogoi or [Strogoi Successor Bloodline] detatchment in your army, you may include one Ork detatchment in your army, regardless of Keywords. These detachments may not include named characters.

>>54363904>>54364772>Many of the Necromonculus, themselves, live within Commorragh. While these neigbors are much more savvy to their ways than the worlds of lesser races, similarly they don't seem to care when "the weak" are infected and converted, so long as the domain of the Necromonculus does not step on the toes of anyone they cannot overcome in a turf-war. Similarly, their unique method of feeding is not out of place here. This has lead to the occasional Archon calling upon the aid of a Necromunculus for a realspace raid. Their prices tend to be higher than those of Heamonculus Covens, more direct and less essoteric. They want bodies and souls: simple as that.

>>54364829>For each Necromonculus, or [Necromonculus Successor Detatchment] detachment, you may include one Drukhari detatchment in your army, regardless of keywords. These detachments may not include named characters.

>>54365015I feel like we're moving towards a general strategy of "infiltrate and hide in plain sight within another faction" as the general survival tactic for the Nanodermis-Vampires. I could very much see one doing something like this withing the Tau Empire, however the Tau themselves wouldn't be of much use for conversion: their souls are too weak to power the transformation process. However, the OTHER Auxiliary races.....

>>54365028>>54365034>>54365015However, even if their souls are too weak for conversion, their technology is DAMN nice when slaved to Nanodermis. I would see whatever Bloodline we decide is infiltrating the Tau Empire (probably something based off of the Jade-Blooded) being very heavy on fully-automated drones, and low on actual vampires and embodied troops.

>>54365102It's okay, we can just go with Jiangshi. Though, perhaps instead of infected tau being incapable of activating at all, perhaps their small souls allow for such short activations that they power down after only a few years of continual use (except infected Etherials of course, who become straight-up Nano-Vamps.) To compensate for this, the Jiangshi court keeps its infected fire-warriors inactive and in hypersleep save for when they're actively fighting.

>Strain gets out of hand on one of the frontier planets the Tau have on the Halo Stars.>Stuff happens and a Ethereal gets vam'd>Every Tau in the area either commit seduko or go apeshit and tries to kill the VampTherial>not just Firecast but every cast does this.

>>54365140>>54365166>>54365127>>54365102>>54362823Combining all these ideas>When a non-Etherial Tau is infected, his soul lacks the strength to power a full transformation into Nanodermic-Unlife, and they remain half-alive and in a state of frenzied madness. While this phenomenon had been seen before in small pockets of humanity with notably weak wills and weak souls, but an entire-race like this: it was unpredictable. The newly minted Jiangshi needed to adapt quickly, learning to use their new aura of nihilistic dread in place of their old aura of peaceful awe.

>>54355750I think if we go with the GSC-Esque Infiltration-Alliance route ( >>54364772>>54364829>>54364858 ) Then it could make sense to make the Vamps themselves be pure melee if we wanted to. However, vampires had magic in WHFB, which is a lot LIKE ranged, so I could see them having something similar to the Necron "Powers of the Ctan" or just straight up having the powers of the ctan themselves

When I start writing him, I originally intended to imply that one of the things that Mekash MIGHT be could be a Ctan... possibly the Deciever, and possibly the Void Dragon.... then again it was also implied that he might be a Cryptech who participated in the embodiment of the Ctan and was punished with them... it's meant to be left ambiguous.

I've always believed that the BEST 40k lore had ambiguity and left certain decisions up to you the player making "your dudes," and I tried to include that in their backstory.

Mekash is definitely something powerful and influential, but the question as to whether the cyber-vamps are actually directly linked to the C'Tan might be better left unanswered.

>Tyranids cannot consume Nanodermis. It's basically poison for them and cuts them from the inside>Jiangshi are the Skaven of the Tau. No one really believes they exist>Orks actively seek out the Wendigos, not to fight, but because there genuinely horrified at the concept of them

>>54365757>Tyranids cannot consume Nanodermis. It's basically poison for them and cuts them from the insideI feel like both are sort of anathema to each other, and actively hunt each other out. On the one hand, From the Tyranid perspective the Pariah-Virus converts biomass to non-consumable Nanodermis. From the Cyber-Vamp perspective, Tyranids turn biomass with perfectly-good soul-fuel, into biomass with incompatible hivemind-non-sapient-non-soul-crap.

I immagine one of the few baddies that actually seek out Vampire worlds are Tyranids, for the expressed purpose of stopping their spread ("they're rotting my food.") Similarly, I immagine that of all the heresies that Vampire-Worlds allow, Genestealer-Cults are actively sought out, hunted down, and exterminated to the man. Of all the factions, the Cyber-Vamps actually like the status-quo, and one of the factions that genuinely threatens the status quo is the Tyranids.

>>54365066Maybe Tau could be the equivalent of Corpse Horrors? One tau is too week, but take several of them, mash em together inside of one of their own mechs, then let the Nanodermis do its thing. The flesh would bulge out through the mech, the multitude of flesh and machine would fuse.

>>54372211Well, their fantasy counterpart has no artillery and is pretty light on vehicles/heavy units in general, so we should probably stick to this being an infantry focused faction.

That said, if the necromancer equivalents are going to be hereteks, then you could probably have some large mechanical construct wired to an undead servitor, creating something roughly equivalent to a Chaos daemon engine.

"Refined" Corps Constructs.Instead of just throwing deadbody's on to whatever vehicle they have Nanomancers use there Forge Worlds to refine the practice. Often making constructs that are appealing to the eyes

>>54374502>>54374377"Refined" Corpse Constructs are also expertly crafted to blend Bio and Mechanical substance to make it incredibly hard to determine where the Biomass starts and where the Nanodermis tubing/mutations end.

>The wendingo Orks have been spreading through Ork space, leaving a path of butchered and desiccated green corpses behind them. >While it would still take at least a century for any Ork warboss to amass a large enough army to form a WAAAGH that could threaten the imperium, the wendingo warband is certainly one of the most likely to do so.

>>54374763>>54361769>>54361940>Initial Wendingo sightings reported a lack of Gretchen the ranks of the WAAAGH band, Xenobiologiest hypothesized that this was due to the strain being to much to bare, and died to the stress.

>More recent reports however state a much more chilling truth. bla bla bla, the Wendingos are actually growing very much alive and conscious Gretchan and Snotling heads underneath there thick fur. screaming in agony that they cant feel there limbs.

>this led Xenobiologist to reconsider the Viruses effect on Ork physiology

>>54374430Oh I like the psychological angle to that! Maybe the virus on a single Tau has just enough power from them to effect them in that regard, kicks in a depression and a feeling of loneliness with a desire to end it all. To come together and comiserate then die and shoved into a big cybernetic crypt horror. I think this works perfectly with the setting and with the standard attitude of the tau as it is.

>>54375211>Wendingo harrasing/slaughtering imperial world #infinitybillion>Armageddon is sent in to deal with them>pic related>get planetside>notices that the civvies and pdf are all chewed up and bitten in half>no upper bodys anywhere. just dismembered legs>what the fuck>in the distance they here a distorted WAAAAGH that sounds synthesized a little bit>get ready for a defense battle>hordes of Wendingo blitz and surround them

So we'd need some kind of heavily armored vampire crypt tank (perhaps converted from one of the vaguely Forgeworld Mechanicum tanks) and a big mobile pimp throne for a cyber-necromancer borne along atop a wave of little robots and nanomachine swarms.

>>54375971>>54376445I hadn't really pictured the captains of the ghost ships being a distinct form of Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-style undead pirate. More like Count Dracula when he took over the ship Demeter.

>>54375385>in the distance they here a distorted WAAAAGH that sounds synthesized a little bit>get ready for a defense battle>hordes of Wendingo blitz and surround them>Two waves of orks, glistening with lustrous green "fur" close upon each other, with the steel legion in the middle.>The orks are killing as many of each other as they are the guardsmen.>Green lightning arcs between the strange ork aberrants, reaching a fever pitch, until suddenly another synthesized roar comes from the distance, and the two waves retreat to just beyond lasgun-range.>The hordes begin roaring back and forth. One yells "GORKA!" and another yells back "MORKA!">Atop a nearby craig, a great green ape walks up, a palpable field of green lightning effortlessly deflecting the lasfire of the remaining guard.>The back and forth of the two hordes grows in volume and intensity. The veterans of ork battles pause in awe for a moment, never having seen orks contain themselves this long.>The chanting goes silent as the Ape-Thing raises its hand, as if to speak.>Instead of speaking it simply drops the hand and releases an atavistic base Klaxon that reverberates through the guardsmen's bones>The orks once again converge on each other, tearing each other and the guard apart indiscriminately.

>No spores are released. Instead with each Orkoid death, an arc of green lightning surges from the corpse to the creature atom the craig.>One legionaire valiantly pulls himself up from the sea of boddies under which he is burried to see a strangely calm scene.>All the Orks, and all of his brothers are dead. >The great ape is calmly sitting calm legged, as its aura glows brighter and brighter>Green particulate matter begins leaving the creature's aura, causing a buzzing noise as it passes within earshot of the stunned guardsman.>The ground begins to rumble, waking the soldier into activity, as he climbs the mountain of corpses to reach the last filthy Xenos.>He begins sinking back into the ground, as the green corpses dissolve.>A great giant of green sinew and bone rises from the pile of bodies: Only human corpses remaining now.>The ape's face, inscrutable as it is, shows brief signs of predatory satisfaction as it looks the lone legionnaire in the eyes.

>>54380623Oh yeah, while I was writing it, I very much immagined that it was the WAAAGH-gestalt-soul nature of the Orks that allowed the gestalt-construct to be made in the first place. Naturally, it would require an entire WAAAAGH to animate such a gestalt construct.

>>54380930He'd probably view the Cyber Vampyrs themselves as unwanted competition, especially with that one bloodline being drawn from a warband of renegade Astartes who rejected Chaos in favor of the vamps.

But the fallen AdMech necromancers could be a different story. Being aligned with Slaanesh, he'd probably get a kick out of them "stealing" undeath away from Nurgle's domain and might even collaborate with them at times.

>>54381341Maybe they weren't reincarnated by the Nanodermis. Maybe they were just waiting for a worthy lord to serve that fit with their programming. Imperium is to mortal and fleshy (even the mechanicus can die of old age.) and the Necrons, while perfect and immortal, aren't human. But human Cyber-Vamps were the first thing to register as "worthy leader" according to their code.

>>54381451if there still an active thing/force in the galaxy than why didnt they attack the Imperium after the The Age of Strife? you would think that with 5 Thousand years of isolation they would probally make more of themselves and prepare if humans ever did comeback to the galaxy?

>>54381540>>54381553Until the Cyber-Vamps showed up, everything that registered as "commander" to their programming was dead. They're not the Orks: they're not going to just keep going without commanders. Without orders, they simply wait for orders from something their programming will allow them to accept orders from.

>After the Transylv'an incident several dozen isolated incidences of Nano Outbreaks the High Lord/Inquisition form "ordo necro" To Keep Watch for any Nanodermis/Vampyre activity around the Galaxy with equipment made specifically killing the Undead menace.

What are we thinking for the visual aesthetic of the 40k VC? Personally I'm much more of a fan of stuff like these >>54361960>>54362133 than the sleeker looking art posted with the corpse construct and wraith brainstorming, especially if we're talking about older scavenged Imperium tech. Even with super sophisticated Necron nanomachine fuckery it would feel weird if the vampire faction had a bunch of newer looking stuff than the humans.

>>54383053Nothing for Only War but a Rogue Trader game where the PCs have to set down on a Vandersten controlled planet for whatever reason and have to deal with aristocratic cybervamps with an unsettlingly in depth knowledge of Imperial customs and who secretly want to cannibalize their tech and make thralls of their entire crew would be an obvious one.

>Rogue Trader gets a fancy new ship with a face on it from this weird system>first couple of adventures go as normal, but with weird details

Such as >the ventilation shafts are "breathing", or inhaling and exhaling air>small pools of blood in the deep halls>wall/pipes leak a weird black ooz sometimes>you could of sworn the Facr on the front of the ship blinked at you once>then crew start disappearing. No one big, but npc who have routines and fixed jobs.>this dosn't effect the ship strangely enough>then the gellar field starts to break in certain areas.>then the Grllar field breaks permanently and the walls start opening and spilling out Hordes upon hordes of Thrall after you

>>54383434That would be great for a short horror campaign but I can already see some more typical RT players voluntarily trying to fill the hull of their ship with thralls in an attempt to create safer warp travel.

>>54383434>>then the Grllar field breaks permanently and the walls start opening and spilling out Hordes upon hordes of Thrall after youAnon the Thralls shouldn't come out of the walls...they should be the walls.

>>54383553I never said it would work, just that a more established RT party would probably try reverse engineering it once they find out thralls are immune to warp tricks. Now that I think about it, getting to play through that plan backfiring would almost be more fun than the original "acquire a fancy new ship" setup.

>>54383553>implying the average Rogue Trader isn't rich and unscrupulous enough to just hire a cyber-vampire onto his crewA 40k ship is so densely populated that the losses from the vamp's unusual diet probably wouldn't even be noticed.

>>54395980Yeah, this has been the one thing I've noticed that hasn't really added up. I'm all for stuff being ambiguous but if the only justification we have for a UV weakness is "they're vampires" that's pretty weak.

>>54395980Well, these guys are basically the result of an experimental fusion between barely-understood Necron technology and human flesh. It's an imperfect process, and much like how the Necron tech drains the host's blood/soul forcing them to replenish themselves by feeding on the living, there were other drawbacks.

When a new cyber-vampire is being turned, they are injected with nanomachines that colonize the host's body and are imprinted with the host's form down to the cellular level, allowing them to rebuild the body from all but the most terrible injuries. But if something changes the organic component of the flesh in some way, like the skin's natural tanning response to UV light, the nanomachines can no longer recognize the flesh and violently reject it, trying to repair what they perceive as damage by destroying the "foreign matter" and regenerating.

So what you get is agonizing blistering and sloughing off of the affected skin as though it were being burned. If this goes on for long enough over enough of the vampire's body, their regenerative abilities will be overwhelmed and they'll slowly disintegrate.

>>54396423My vote would be for them to have personal resistance to the effects of the warp but not really anything beyond that. They're only part Necron, and having a stronger Pylon-like effect around would feel overpowered and out of line with the setting.

>>54397045Well, personally I had them as still doing so, but then again, my own conception of 40kek Vampyres was more about inbred nobles with a weird blood disease so not all that related to what we're doing here.

>>54397045I feel like it would be up in the air depending on their age and how hard the nanomachines got into their brains. A younger cybervamp would probably retain a lot of his human morality but at a certain point they'd probably come to realize there are things besides Big E they could be venerating. I imagine the Vanderstens in particular would maintain, at least in appearance, loyalty to the Imperial cult.

Hell, maybe bits of leftover Mekash code gets stuck in their heads so they have more of a draw toward the Omnissiah/Void Dragon/C'tan/whatever Mekash is?

>>54397106>im sure the ones who dont know whats happening to them do.That brings up an interesting point: How many of them would know that?

I mean, obviously the first ones on Mars (Nerata and friends) who dug up the Necron nanotech and used it to create the cyber-virus would know, but would they have explained to the next generation what it really was? And considering the poor state of scientific literacy in the Imperium in general, how many people outside of the Mechanicus would even be able to understand what they were being told if it was explained to them?

>Men of Iron/Wights where one of Mekashes earliest projects with Nanodermis.>gave it to a AM like Supercomputor that made it go "KILL THE HUMANS" crazy>Age of Strife happens>thousands of years of years of isolation and no "enemies" to kill led them to decay with isolation>presant day>Vampyr's/Nefrah hear that Nanomancers found something dangerous in the Bottem of the Forgeworld>investigate>Nanomancers accidentally reactivated some MoI>Nefrah asks/Demands them to stop>well your human like but we feel like your related to us some how obviously not that sappy but you get the picture[/spoiler>or hell she just infects them with a big batch of Grey Goo.

>>54397411wait so are the iron men vampires, or are they just AI's infected with vampirism? What were they before they were infected, maybe men of stone (i remember reading men of iron where successors to early AIs, men of stone)?

>>54398035Gotcha. I really like the men of iron, but personally I like to not use them much. They were implied to be super powerful, so I like to keep them as one of those ancient evils that you hear about but almost never see, that way they stay mysterious. Personally I feel like making them the lackies of half necrons kinda downgrades them a bit, but hey, to each their own.

>>54398035>>54398078actually upon rereading your quote you said "working alongside" for some reason I read that as subservient. So long as they stay badass I'm fine but ultimately you should just do w/e you want in your games.

>>54398471When we rolled them up on the tables last thread, they hate the Chaos gods so their relations to the Chaos warbands are going to be strained. At the same time, they're anti-Imperial due to acceptance of criminals/mutants/heretics. I'd see them operating mostly alone, but could temporarily be grudging allies to either Chaos or Imperial forces if a greater threat like Tyranids or whatever forced them together.

They favored melee combat and their wargear specialty was armor. So they probably have an unusually large amount of Termies and artificer armor equivalents.

Probably no dreads through, because they wouldn't have any permanently crippled battle brothers. Any injury that doesn't kill a cyber-vamp outright could be regenerated in time.

>>54398844>"Wild" strains, generic brand.>Revenants, Space Pirates/Rogue Traders.Do they really need to be separate strains? Seems more like undead Rogue Traders and other space pirate types would just be incidental offshoots of the Vandersten or Lahmia strains depending on who they got to turn them.

Obviously they'd be operating outside the control of the major vampire houses, but they wouldn't have physically different attributes, I mean.

>>54399386Kay. So why would the imperium or whoever arm their dudes with UV Guns for a group that is 'supposedly' a sneaky group that is not really known? And what point would the 'UV guns have in the game beyond 'be sure to splurge the points when fighting the Vamps on these'

>>54399397Probably! That way its more of a 'I just cobbled this fucking microwave into a gun that shoots the sun to kill technovampires!' than 'Imperium mandate: use UV Guns to kill vampires' which is my issue.

The Imperium is not going to issue specialized UV lasguns to a whole Imperial Guard regiment just to be more effective against a small number of the elite units in an extremely small enemy faction. Just like how the Guard doesn't get issued things like psycannons even when fighting against daemons.

>>54399526>>54399576So its a special basically 'elite only' or, in one of the RPGs, 'your party only' gun? Makes sense to me.

Still, the big boys shouldn't be too worried about being outside in the sun so much as being shot with THE HOLY FURY OF A THOUSAND RAGING SUNS being shot at them right? Be a lil suspect if you only were seen metting with people at night right?

>>54397545>>54398078I think in the last thread it was mentioned that the men of iron only respond to vampires because they're either the only "humans" old enough to be recognized as viable commanders or some sort of loophole in their programing created by the nanodermis infection.

>>54400496there is a Penal Legion that when they Rank up they get to become Ghouls and get normal las weaponry that dosnt break with every five shots. but I still dont think that they actually know whats going on.

>>54400496I feel like, in a lot of ways, their lives are likely better than your generic imperial hiveworlder. There's basically no job you can do better than a thrall/servitor, other than give blood. Likely to other "imperial" worlds, they seem like high-quality-of-life agri-worlds with a surplus of servitors to take care of the tithe.... you just... DO NOT EVER MISS THE WEEKLY PDF-VETERANS BLOOD DRIVE.

Heck, half of them probably still think they're imperial. It's just, if you start becoming too much of a risk of chaos infection, you get thralled instead of blamed.

The Vampires are LONG thinking, and they have a vested interest in keeping their blood-cattle fed and happy (and therefore breeding.)

Think twilight-zone episode where pleasantville is secretly run by vampires, but at-least it's better than the hellhole outside.

>Now make sure to eat your vegetables and drink your milk, so you're ready for the PDF-Veterans Blood Drive.

>>54400896>>54400496Alternatively, spittballing again, the worlds that make less effort to pretend to be genuinely imperial, could be a lot like pic-related. The humans are seperated at birth: those who are going to be made into thralls are given growth-acceleration hormones and infected, and those that are going to be made into blood-banks are lulled into a ForeverNEET Docility.>Sure they put a needle in my arm every week or so, but I get cupcake in a cup, and a ll the Game Of Golden Thrones that I could ever want."

>Tau outpost planet that was recently concored from the humans go's quiet>inner sphere/ethereal sends Cadre to check out whats going on>Cadre gets there, nothing is out of the ordinary exept the Gue'vesa are the only life on the planet>"hey why are you guys the only people on the planet, and why do you guys look weird">back and forth discussion between the two parties happen>what ever you do, DONT OPEN THE BUILDINGS IN THE CITYS.>fire warriors with aided with Crisis suits investigates the City, opening the buildings>RAEG ZOMBIES>"reports back to the rest of the Cadre>"LIFE IS SUFFERING END MY EXISTENCE in tau>fuuuuckturns out the Gue'vesa where Vamps>hand full get off planet>report back to Ethereal about the "Jumping Ghosts", or Jian'gshi>Ethereal says "there are no such thing as "Jian'gshi">the fire warriors faces go blank, and repeats "there are no such thing as Jian'gshi, and then leaves the Ethereal's chambers>Etherial sits and starts sobbing quietly, for this has been the 60th report of Jian'gshi sightings in Tau Space and he starts to fully realize that the Galaxy wasnt just apathetic to there cause, but hateful and spiteful to it as well

>>54397253They'd be in denial. no way humans in the 40th millennium would belive you that theres another Corrupting force in the Galaxy besides chaos and possibly the Tyranids and still be in control of your consciousness.

>>54401578Hmm, I didn't fully think that one through. That bit was actually a bit of a brainstorm by a third party (gotta love collaborative storytelling.)

If I were to improvise it right now off the top of my head, I'd say she "turned herself in for questioning" but actually sent a drone with an imperfect copy of herself. At a pre-determined time, the drone exploded into a nanodermis swarm and infected the entire ship.

This is the sort of trick that really only works once, when the inquisitors can still mistake a cyber-vamp for some other kind of corrupted planetary-governor.

Have we gotten into how long ago the business with Mekash and Nerata happened? I think I remember someone in the other thread mentioning that the oldest Vampyr would be around the age of younger Space Marines but as far as I know we never really put a time frame to it.

>The administorum laborer marveled at the records of the Transylv'an sector show it as having been under uninterrupted imperial rule since as early as the great crusade, but record of supply chains only go back.....>His thoughts were interrupted as the synthesized voice of his machine-spirit overseer chimed in through his implants>"Have you found the corrupted records that are in need of redaction?"

>>54401952>>54401970>BloodyTears disguise themselves as CPM With there Blood Armor and aid the Iron Fists (just go with it) with raiding/save there asses from some deep shit>negotiation>"interesting, you have Flesh but aided by machinery/but you are not weak. can we get some bloodsamples/geneseed?">being aided by Nerata/Void Dragon/the weird voices in the back of there Head say sure>Apothecary Roudolf Ruland the Younger talks about how there blessed with a alternative/cure to chaos and wishes to see if it can reverse the effect of Chaos Corruption>closest thing Iron Hands has to a Chaos Mutant is A Oblitorator>this will do>infects it.>It screams in pleasure and wheezez about how this pain feels better than its existence>Boom>gore everywhere>gore starts to recede and reforms itself into a corpse construct vaguely in the shape of a Obliterrator>Chaos Corruption is tecnically gone, but its still the same, but mindless.>"well it was worth a shot"Bloody Tears now have a slightly shitty Obliterator

>>54402115little spit balls i wanna Jot down because i forgot to write them

>Roudolf Ruland stared in the eyes of the Mountan of muscle and metal. matching it breathing perfectly>"trust me brover, vis vill vill you">the Oblitorator breaths deeply, its breath hard and forced, after inhaling and exhaling five times, it was able to force out two words.>pleee~aaaas, fiiii~iix, mmmeee~eee>if the voice deep and in pain it would of passed as a wisper when it was still human>nods his head and looks down and injects a needle in a exposed bit of skin>continue on Kek Kerrot 9 down on >>54402115

>>54401047I like it, but I feel like, eventually, the Jiangshi would eventually secretly "Petition for entry into the empire." They argue (in secret with their former compatriots) that if they are allowed to exist on the fringes as a buffer, and take only the occasional sacrificial "exploratory reclamation force" to replenish their ranks when enemy casualties aren't enough, and provide infinitely more effective defenses than the same number of fire-caste-warriors, it would be, by definition, "For the greater good."

The vampires are a parasite that seeks to convince its host it is a symbiote, and the Tau are desperate for allies.

>>54402801Well I immagine, once they learned to control their nanites and reverse-ethereal dread-aura, they would merely manage the leper colonies, and move through Tau society disguised as the Etherials they used to be. The Jiangshi are useful, but the revelation of the horrors that allying with them meant would not be useful. Therefore:>There is no such thing as the Jiangshi.

>>54402910I see the Jiangshi forging their own little planetary fiefdoms on the fringes of the Tau Empire. They agree to act as a functional "great wall" against invaders, because they can callously throw their lifeless minions against enemies, and in exchange the Etherials ignore the innumerable little atrocities in the name of what is unfortunately, and undeniably, "the greater good." Every now and then, a Jiangshi who has learned to control his/her powers (I.E. they won't accidentally infect/convert nearby Tau into violent half-dead thralls, because that's what happens to Tau, because their souls aren't powerful enough to fully power the thrasformation leaving them half-alive and insane) will return to the Etherials (after all, they used to be Ethereals) to make sure that things are going according to plan.

To keep this whole thing secret, the planets themselves, no matter the evidence to the contrary, are declared "dead" and "uninhabitable." Only the occasional exploratory terminating group is sent.... and they never return.

so can Vampyr Courts be considered "honerary" Deldar after>>54361960. and im not saying "oh Deldar are buddy buddy with us", but in the since that they actually ignowlage us as there kin and made a "alliance" with them that comes with both privilege and curse of being Deldar?

>>54403142I don't believe that the Dark Eldar are a monolithic entity that can be aligned with. Individual vampires fiefdoms might align themselves with individual Kabals/Cults/Covens, and they likely frequently do. Hell, some Vampires even live in the Dark City. However, they are also directly competing with each other for resources, and they both don't place a whole lot of value on life.

However, it is generally the Vampire's nature to make peace, or at-least reluctant alliance, whenever possible, and I'm sure more than one Kabal has fallen prey to the promise of a permanent cure for She-Who-Thirsts.

Basically, a Kabal probably views a Vampire Planet, the same way they look at another Kabal: a potential threat (and vice versa.)

>Noseferatu are the "failed" experiments Mekash traded to the Dark Eldar.It's Unknown if the Noseferatu are of Eldar or Human origin, or if there a mix made by Haemonculus. But in all intense and purpose there considered "fixed" fisnished by there masters.>Specialty is being a Psyker and fleshgrafting>they can be found in the deep bowels of Vampyr society stalking UnderHives

>Only Bloody Tears and there strain can effect Astarte and turn Astarte vehicles into other Vampyr's and Cyber Constructs. if Other Strains attempt such a feat they would simply fail>in addition the Astarte needs to accept the gift. forcing it will only result in certain death if the Astarte immune system fails to fight against it.

>>54403495>are they Eldar Outcasts who join the Courts to escape Slaanesh?Given that every eldar faction's life basically REVOLVES around perpetuating their primary means of avoiding Slaanesh, I could see a desperate Eldar who is on the run from [whatever] and seperated from their usual means of avoiding Slaaneshi-oblivion because [whatever reason] desperately trying to reach and make a deal with a Necracrh/Necromonculus before his enemies reach him. Sounds like a Guy Ritchie film, but in Cammorah.

>>54403849hell, they could also be suplying the Other races who give a damn about Vampires Anti Vampire weaponry. like Orks, who are bloody terrified of Wagdingos and want to get rid as much as possible.

>>54403800In the WHFB fluff, nobody is really "against" the vampires in an all-out-war sense, especially the Sylvanians, but there are loads of excuses for skirmishes that are on the scale roughly on the scale of a 2000 point battle. Similarly, there are few if any factions who would mount an all-out-war against the Cyber-Vamps... in no small part as an intentional mcguffin because the Vampires really couldn't withstand that, but there ARE, however, numerous excuses for skirmishes on the scale of... oh...say... a 2000 pt 40k game.

It was very much on purpose.

Think of them like a parasite or a virus (after all they ARE literally a virus) who's primary purpose is to hide in plain sight.